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I've been shooting the heck out of my new pistol lately. I've run about 1500 rds through it in the last week and it's been real reliable, but with most of the ammo I've tried SO FAR, accuracy has been very mediocre to terrible with the exception of the Aguila Super Extra 40gr Solid copper washed, which was very accurate.
Btw, my Blued MK III and my Pac Lite were puchased from Paul Zint who is also a smith. He has excellent prices and gives good service. I totally recommend him. He put the Pac lite on my gun along with a Clark Bushing and Pin set along with a VQ sear, Trigger (unfortunately, the one without the pretravel adjustment), and a Bolt Release.
I have a couple of questions and observations. First of all when I take my upper off the pistol I have to hit the back of the upper pretty hard with the old rubber mallet. To get it back on with enough overide of the lower I have to actually whack the muzzle with my soft rubber mallet to drive the receiver/upper back far enough to insert the mainspring pin. I know your supposed to whack the back of the lower, but I ate up my nylon hammer trying this and finally just grabbed my large black soft rubber mallet and whacked the end of the muzzle. The actual barrel crown is recessed, so I don't think that a soft rubber mallet is going to hurt the end of the barrel. What do you guys think? These Tac Sol uppers are REALLY tight.
Also, my rear sight pin migrates out of its hole in the sight and has to be tapped back in every couple hundred rounds (I think some locktite 290 will fix this). The sight adjustments are opposite of every other handgun I have i.e. the windage screw turns counterclockwise to move impact to the right and the elevation screw turns counterclockwise to move impact up. This is bassackwards.
I was wondering if letting the bolt stop release on a round to chamber said round will hurt the bolt. I've heard something about this in the past.
Lastly, with the bolt back and a loaded magazine in the gun should the mag rattle loosely when you shake the pistol. It stops completely when I chamber the round and the bolt closes. Sorry for the twenty questions.

You've got a bunch of questions here so I'll try and address them all.

First, it is not unusual to need a mallet to remove and install a Ruger receiver. Some of these components are on quite tight. Nothing wrong with using the soft faced mallet on both ends (muzzle and bolt) - I do it all the time. To avoid chewing up the mallet on the back of the receiver, I often place the bolt back into the receiver and that gives me a larger, smoother surface to strike with the mallet. There's no rule on not striking the upper with the mallet - as long as its made of a rubber or other non-marring material.

Next, the rear sight pin can be affixed by a very small drop of Locktite on one end of the pin. But BE CAREFUL to use only a tiny dot of Locktite, otherwise it will migrate and may fuse your rear sight's elevation assembly. I prefer the #272, or Red, for this application but the green is OK if that's what you have. Be sure to allow a full 24 hours for the threadlocker sealant to completely cure. This is where most people make their mistake and as soon as the sealant sets, they start using it subsequently breaking the sealant's bond.

Every brand of sight has their own direction of movement. Not all manufacturers follow a standard direction. Here's an example.



Releasing the bolt via toggling the slide release will eventually cause wear to either the bolt or the bolt stop. Typically this wear appears as rounding off and the bolt fails to lock open after the last round in the magazine is fired. The solution is to use a sling shot method to release the bolt. Basically pulling the bolt rearward, then letting go it to close the bolt.



Lastly, it is normal for your Mark III magazine to sound loose in the grip frame. As long as the magazine is firmly locked up in place there is no problem. The Mark III mag is only held in position by the pistol's mag release lever and the small bump on the right side of the magazine body. The grip's magazine well is a loose fit and a mag will rattle laterally a little when the mag locked in place. When the bolt is closed the magazine's follower spring, either via the plastic follower or the successive rounds in the mag, will push downwards and apply tension to the mag body and that keeps the it from moving freely.

I hope I've addressed all your questions to your satisfaction. If you have more feel free to pose them here.

R,
Bullseye

Thanks, Bulleye for your extreme expertise.
What good is the extended bolt release then? Maybe I'll just put my factory bolt release back on and change the stainless no pretravel VQ trigger for a another trigger. How do you guys like the Clark or Kidd triggers?

Kidd makes a trigger for the MK series?

Also, on the extended release, I actually really like mine, but only use it for locking the slide back. It still can come in handy.

JJ

jjfunk wrote:Kidd makes a trigger for the MK series?

Also, on the extended release, I actually really like mine, but only use it for locking the slide back. It still can come in handy.

JJ

My bad on the Kidd.

Yeah, I guess its still nice to have. The only thing that I can see is it has kinda sharp edges for holster purposes. Might have to do a "melt"job on it.

What good is the extended bolt release then?

It makes good money for VQ. Actually there are some aftermarket grips that have a larger diameter and these make the factory release hard to reach when locking open the bolt manually. Other than that I prefer the OEM release.

R,
Bullseye

Bullseye wrote:

What good is the extended bolt release then?

It makes good money for VQ. Actually there are some aftermarket grips that have a larger diameter and these make the factory release hard to reach when locking open the bolt manually. Other than that I prefer the OEM release.

R,
Bullseye

Live and learn, like the man said. That makes sense on the bolt release-having oversized grips like the Hogue or VQ Volthanes. With regular grips it sticks out waaay too far.
Thanks for all the replies.

Just because I'm not fond of the extended release doesn't mean that other's don't like it. But like Johnny said, it just sticks way too far out from a regular set of grips. It is also made of stamped metal, which makes it look kind of cheap in my opinion.

R,
Bullseye

That extended bolt release might be useful if you use the VQ volthane grips on a Mark II or III. With the VQ grips installed the factory bolt release is really tough to operate. Of course if you slingshot the bolt as suggested it is not an issue.

DWS

Here's a pic of the Pac Lite w/ the SWR Spectre. I changed the VQ Bolt Realease back to Ruger OEM. If anybody wants the VQ Bolt release they can have it. I'll mail it to ya.

Nice lines. Good match of upper to can on the O.D.

JJ

People say the Spectre is heavy, and it kinda is, but it balances perfectly with the Pac Lite IMO. Any Rimfire cans that I get in the future will either be Titanium or Stainless so that I can clean them with the 50/50 vineger and peroxide mixture aka, "The Chemical Ali" method. I really like this Spectre Can. I like the baffle pusher tool that pushes out the baffles after the can gets gunked up, especially if I shoot it full auto. SWR also has really good customer service and they always answer the phone or get right back to ya if you have any questions, or god forbid, an issue.